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Finding Modified Embedded Firmware
Since Engineers launched I've really been enjoying the overcharged multicannons on my ships. To upgrade to the Grade 5 overcharged mods however you need Modified Embedded Firmware and like most players I had found my search for MEF to be quite frustrating at first. MEF is one of the hardest materials to gather and the only material I've had more difficulty finding is Exquisite Focus Crystals. At this point MEF can occasionally be obtained from mission rewards or from scanning the data points at High security +++ settlements, however, missions that offer MEF are quite rare and the High security bases are well defended and require an orbital assault with a heavily-armed ship. Fortunately it turns out that it is also possible to get MEF (and other mid-high grade data) by scanning the data points at Medium security +++ settlements without firing a shot or getting any bounties. This is a combination of a settlement list and guide to help with getting MEF from these bases.

Medium Security Settlements
Medium security +++ settlements with Industrial, Exploration and Scientific layouts all restrict ships from entering their "airspace" which is usually between 1-2 km distance depending on the base and the surrounding terrain. If you loiter in this "trespass zone" long enough with your ship you will get fines/bounties and eventually be attacked by the base and/or base defence ships. However, if you land outside this area with your ship you can drive your SRV into the base without any difficulty. There are certain areas within these settlements that will trigger a security response if you loiter in them with your SRV (resulting in fines/bounties/combat) but you don't need to enter those areas to do the the data point scans. You just drive your SRV into the base and scan all the orange data points within the timer limit before they reset (between 3-5 data points depending on the layout). If you can't make the scans in time the data points will just reset and you can start over with a new scan and keep trying until you succeed.

Extraction Layout Bases It turns out there's another type of settlement that can be used to obtain MEF which are the Extraction layout bases. Despite being listed as medium sized ++ settlements in the game Djadjok has identified them as being equivalent to as large sized +++ settlements for data drops regardless of the listed size of the base. This means that Medium/High security ++ Extraction bases can both drop MEF despite not being "large" settlements. Like the Medium security +++ settlements you can complete both security versions of these bases without actually shooting anything or getting bounties. The Medium security ++ Extraction layouts have a total of 5 data points that are all located in the "core" part of the base with no security areas that limit SRV driving. The High security ++ Extraction layouts have a total of 4 data points but only one is the "core" of the settlement and this is located on the rooftop with multiple security areas which will trigger when your SRV enters them. The other three data points are located in the remote "extractor" areas with the clusters of automated mining extractors. These "remote" data points are located several km distance from the main "core" of the base but the timers for each data point are 300 seconds giving you plenty of time to drive between them. The roof data point on the High Security ++ Extraction bases can't be scanned from ground level and you need to boost/drive onto the roof while avoiding the multiple security areas so it's best to scan the roof data point at the start of the run and then scan the "remote" data points.

Settlement List
We have been working on a list that includes all the Medium security +++ and Extraction layout ++ settlements we've identified so far that can be used for these data point scans. The list is categorized by settlement layout and also includes links to Djadjok's settlement maps. Two of the maps also have an efficient scan path marked that starts on the rooftop for the first data point. I've listed a total of 36 bases that I've personally visited and collected drop rate stats for the MEF. Djadjok has also compiled a spreadsheet with a much larger list of settlements that can also be visited for data point scans, including a distance calculator feature to make it easier to determine the closest base.

Data Point Drops
Scanning all of the data points gives you a total of 5-7 units of data (usually mid-high grade) and also gives a small amount of credits as a Data Point Intel Package (usually 5k-10k credits). You can get multiples of a given data type from a single base run (I have gotten up to 3 MEF at a time from a single base) so the drops can be quite random. Other types of firmware in addition to MEF also drop frequently from data point scans so these bases are also a good source of firmware for other mods as well. Data drops can include:
Very Common Data (Grade 1): Unusual Encrypted Files
Common Data (Grade 2): Tagged Encryption Codes
Standard Data (Grade 3): Cracked Industrial Firmware, Classified Scan Databanks, Open Symmetric Keys
Rare Data (Grade 4): Security Firmware Patch, Divergent Scan Data
Very Rare Data (Grade 5): Modified Embedded Firmware, Classified Scan Fragment

Core Data Terminal
In addition to scanning the orange data points you can also scan the grey-colored Core Data Terminal. This can be done separately from the regular data point scan and so I usually do this at the start before I scan the orange data points since it isn't on a timer. This gives you a Core Data Package that is usually worth between 600-750k credits. Both the Core Data package and the smaller Data Point Intel Package (from the regular data point scan) can be turned in at the Contacts tab at any station regardless of faction (if you have multiple data packages the total value will be listed once as the Core Data Package value).

Average MEF Drop Rates
I got a total of 25 MEF from visiting all the bases on this list, with 15 of the 36 bases I visited giving MEF drops. That works out to an average of 42% of the bases I visited giving out MEF with an average yield of 1.7 MEF/base when it did drop. This means you should expect to see MEF drop in about 1 out of every 2-3 of the Medium security bases that you visit and when it does drop it tends to give an average of 1-2 MEF. Other players have reported different drops from these bases and it can be quite random what any given base might drop but it seems that any of the bases on this list (i.e., any Medium security +++ or Extraction layout ++ settlement) have the potential to drop MEF.

MEF Drop Rates by Layout Type
I had noticed that for the Medium security +++ bases I've generally gotten the highest MEF drop rates from Exploration layout bases, moderate drop rates from Industrial bases and the lowest from Scientific bases and so I've also broken down my results by settlement layout. I actually think my sample is far too small for these trends to mean much and it's also worth noting that other players have reported quite variable results so I wouldn't put too much emphasis on the type of layout. At the same time if you only need 1-2 more MEF for an upgrade you might want to try nearby Exploration bases first, then Industrial and then Scientific based on these results. The Extraction layout bases generally gave good MEF drops but the numbers are far too small at this point to draw any conclusions from.

Effort/Reward Analysis
So far the list includes a total of 30 Medium security +++ bases and 6 Extraction layout ++ bases for a total of 36 bases. This gave me a total of 25 MEF plus around 25 million credits from the core data point packages. Visiting all of the settlements on the list and running through the data points took me a total of around 12 hours so this worked out to approximately 2 MEF per hour plus approximately 2 million credits/hr from the core data points in addition to the other data drops. A typical base run took me around 30 minutes per base but this can obviously vary quite a bit depending on how good you are at SRV driving, your experience with the base layouts, difficulties with high gravity worlds, travel time between the settlements, and so on. I used my multipurpose combat/trading Python which has around a 24 ly range and I didn't visit the bases in an efficient manner at all so flying a long-range Asp and using an efficient route could cut this time down to as little as 20 min/base or less which would be closer to 8 hours to visit all the settlements on the list. An "optimal" run through the list would probably get you over 2 MEF per hour on average which is quite decent. For comparison, I have been frequently checking the mission boards to look for missions that offer MEF and have been making a point to frequently check with factions I was Allied with, and despite this I only got 4 MEF from missions in the past 4 weeks which is 1 MEF/week on average compared to the 25 MEF/week using this settlement list.

Base Resets
According to FD the data points on bases are supposed to "reset" after approximately one week so you should be able to run through these bases again to repeat the data point scans. I had been checking the first settlements I tried at 89 Leonis and they didn't reset until two weeks after I originally visited them. It looks like the bases do reset after a few weeks, it just takes somewhat longer than FD had indicated. Interestingly the core data terminals at 89 Leonis, which I went back and scanned about a week after I originally scanned the data points, had not yet reset which suggests that they are on separate reset timers. It look like the bases are definitely resetting although the reset cycle seems to be every 2 weeks instead of every week and it appears to be on an individual timer for each base that you scan instead of a "global" reset timer where all the bases reset. So assuming a reset timer of 2 weeks and an average of 25 MEF total for all 36 bases this means we can "farm" these bases for an average of around 12 MEF/week. Another interesting note is that the second time I scanned these bases I got 0 MEF from Payne's Inheritance and 1 MEF from Burgess Holdings compared to 3 MEF from Payne's Inheritance and 1 MEF from Burgess Holdings the first time I ran through these bases so it appears that the MEF drops are quite random and there are no consistently "high yield" or "low yield" bases for MEF.

ED Pathfinding Tool NeoTron has developed an extremely useful pathfinding tool called EDPathFinder that is located here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/329112-EDPathFinder-planetary-base-data-point-scanning-helper-tool?p=5144108#post5144108 This tool can be downloaded and is a self-contained program that allows you to set a point of origin and calculate an efficient jump path that will take you to all the bases within range that meet specified criteria. You can filter the tool for various types of settlements or data types and it includes maps and scan paths as well for each base location. It's an extremely efficient and powerful tool and can be extremely helpful for setting up a longer series of base runs or if you want to quickly find nearby bases that can be used for data runs.

Updates
The list will continue to be updated as we identify more bases or get more information on how the data drops work. In the meantime hopefully this list will help players get the MEF they need to start putting overcharged mods on their multicannons.

Changes in 2.1.05 Patch
The blueprints have changed significantly in the 2.1.05 patch and now you only need 1 MEF for the Grade 5 overcharged modifications instead of 2 MEF. According to the 2.1.05 patch notes the drop rates for the data point scans have also been "rebalanced". Since the 2.1.05 patch I've ran though 12 settlements in total and 5 bases dropped a total of 6 MEF units which each counted 3X for a total of 18 MEF. That gives me a drop rate of 42% of bases dropping MEF but with each drop actually giving 3 MEF the yield of MEF per base works out to an overall yield of 1.5 MEF/base visited on average. Prior to 2.1.05 I saw an identical drop rate with 42% of bases dropping MEF on average but each base gave an average of 1.7 MEF for an overall yield of 0.7 MEF/base visited on average. So my yield of MEF/base has roughly doubled from 0.7 MEF/base prior to 2.1.05 to 1.5 MEF/base after 2.1.05. The drop rate itself doesn't seem to have changed in terms of the chance of a base yielding MEF (around 42%) but the total of MEF "units" that drop per base has roughly doubled. In addition the new blueprints in 2.1.05 only require 1 MEF for a Grade 5 roll so the MEF now goes twice as far. The end result of all of this is that effectively means that you get double the MEF per base and your MEF goes twice as far, meaning you only have to do 25% as many base runs to make a single Grade 5 overcharged roll.

Changes in 2.2 Patch
The value of the CDT scans has decreased dramatically with the 2.2 patch by a factor of around 100X and they are now worth around 5k-10k credits instead of 600-750k credits per scan. There are no longer any Data Point Intel Packages that used to give you a small amount of credits when completing the Data Point scans. This means that the base runs are only really useful for data drops now as the CDT scans are no longer a significant source of income.

Changes in 2.3 Patch
There are no known major changes identified so far in the 2.3 patch in terms of MEF drop rates from the base scans. There does, however, seem to have been some changes to the frequency of certain materials showing up as mission rewards and this seems to have caused a decrease in missions that provide MEF as a reward due to changes that were implemented sometime during the 2.2 or 2.3 patches. It is now much easier to find Exquisite Focus Crystals from missions but MEF seems to show up as a mission reward even less frequently than it used to (and it was already quite rare to find missions that gave out MEF to begin with). As a result trying to find MEF from missions is even more challenging and the base scans seem to be the only reliable way of getting MEF in significant quantities.

Changes in 2.3.11 Patch
This patch introduced some changes to the mission rewards and MEF is now offered more frequently as a mission reward. This can provide another source of MEF if you can find missions offering it which can be useful if you have several bases that you've already scanned and are waiting for them to complete their two week reset.

Changes in 2.4 Patch
Certain high-level missions (such as the Palin Thargoid missions) now give MEF and Exquisite Focus Crystals much more frequently than previous missions and can serve as an excellent source of MEF to supplement the base runs.

Since 2.4 launched I've scanned a total of 60 bases and recorded the MEF drop rates. The overall drop rate from base runs was 42% (same as the overall drop rate seen previously) although there was more variation with the drop rates between the different base layouts. With this set of base runs the drop rate for Exploration bases still remained the highest among the different base types, followed by Scientific and Industrial bases.

Changes in 3.0 Patch
In addition to the various Engineering changes with 3.0 the most significant change for MEF is that the data settlements now only drop 1 MEF instead of 3 MEF per unit from the scans. Essentially the data collection time for MEF has tripled assuming that the data drops themselves were unchanged other than reducing the ratio of mat drops. However, it was only intended to reduce the mat drop ratio for Guardian settlements and not for other settlement data such as MEF which means that the ratio should be fixed once this issue is addressed.

Another major issue is that there is now a 1.5-2 km red SRV trespass zone around the entire perimeter of the Industrial Medium security bases. This is most likely unintended since the Exploration and Scientific medium security bases can still be approached in the SRV without encountering an SRV trespass zone covering the entire base. Hopefully they'll fix this at the same time they fix the data drop mat ratio. In the meantime it looks like it will be necessary to limit the Medium security base runs to the Exploration and Scientific bases if you want to do base runs without getting fines/bounties, which is particularly important due to the new crime and punishment changes for how bounties work in 3.0.

At Exploration and Scientific bases you can still drive up to the bases with the SRV without getting fines/bounties although the size of the settlement ship trespass areas has been increased from approximately 1-2 km to approximately 2-2.5 km which means you need to land farther from the settlements before deploying the SRV. In most cases the permitted landing area is now far enough away from the bases that your ship will have departed once you reach the base in your SRV to do the scans which means that you will likely need to recall your ship every time you do a base run instead of simply driving back to your nearby landed ship. In addition you can no longer recall your ship while your SRV is within the ship trespass area and need to drive significantly outside of the this area, approximately 2.5-4 km away from the base, before the ship can be recalled. This can increase the time taken to do the base runs because you need to spend more time driving to and from the base in order to recall and board your ship which can add as much as 3-5 mins to the runs on average which makes a typical base run take around 25% longer.

Another difference is that completing the base scans will now give you both a faction-specific Data Point Intel Package worth around 10-12k credits in addition to the small Data Point Intel Package (worth a few thousand credits). The difference is that the faction-specific intel packages need to be redeemed in systems that are specific to that faction which often requires a trip to a different system which usually isn't worthwhile given the low credit value associated with them.

Changes in 3.0.5 Patch
The data drops for base runs have now been fixed so that a single drop of MEF data counts as 3X data units in your inventory. There are still 2 km SRV trespass zones around certain Medium-security settlements which means that you can still only do the SRV scans at some of the Medium-security settlements without getting fines/bounties. However, a major change is that the 2-week reset timers for the base runs have been completely removed. You can now do a data run at a settlement and then simply log in/out and you can repeat the scan again at the same base. This means that it is now possible to continuously repeat multiple scans at a single base just by logging in/out after each run. On average it takes around 3 min./run to complete a data point scan at an Exploration layout base which means that it is now possible to average 12 scans/hr including 10 min. travel time to/from a single base. The MEF drop rate has been working out to an average of 33% per base which gives around 12 MEF/hr including travel time. Compared to prior times of around 15 min./base when travelling between each base individually this makes the current drop rates around 3X the prior average of 4 MEF/hr. If you stay at a single base for several hours the peak collection rate (not including travel time) would be around 20 MEF/hr assuming an average of 3 min./run. This is quite a bit higher than we've previously gotten from the base runs, around 3-5X better rates of MEF/hr, although considering that FD values 1 MEF as being equivalent to 500k credits as a mission reward it isn't entirely unreasonable either since it would correspond to 6-10 mil/hr credit reward if you were running missions during that time.

I am not getting that high of a drop rate. At the moment I did 5 Exploration layouts and got 1 MEF but I am actually looking for Cracked Industrial so no problem there just like to mention the lower rate.

I am not getting that high of a drop rate. At the moment I did 5 Exploration layouts and got 1 MEF but I am actually looking for Cracked Industrial so no problem there just like to mention the lower rate.

The drop rates are quite variable and I have heard of players who got a fair bit of MEF from Scientific layouts but less from others so I think we probably need much larger numbers for the drop rates to mean much. I have also had stretches where I would do 6-8 bases in a row and not get a single MEF, then the next 2-3 bases start dropping it again, and so on. It's entirely possible that the only factor that affects drops is base size and that all +++ settlements have the same drop chances regardless of base layout or security level, but at this point we just don't have enough information to be certain.

I've done so many of these medium security bases without a single MEF that it's past frustrating but I know they can drop so I'll keep on trying.

A big thank you to devari for this list because he has put in a serious amount of time and graft to make it easier for other people.
BTW I know Brett said the bases reset after a week but there's a base that I raided in an anarchy system that hasn't reset after ten days so it is something we will need to keep on eye on.

I have heard of some players getting MEF drops from certain bases that failed to give me MEF and vice-versa so there seems to be quite a bit of randomness involved but I think that any medium security +++ settlement on the list has the potential to drop MEF.

Thanks, I'm glad the list will help. I also wanted to give credit to djadjok for all of his work on the settlement maps and for providing most of the names/locations for the settlements that I tried for the data point runs.

It's been ten days now for me for the settlements on 89 Leonis so will check again today to see if they've reset yet. I have read posts where some people only saw resets following a game patch while others seemed to have noticed resets happening eventually after 1-2 weeks so I'm not sure if there may be other factors that can "trigger" a reset.

Unfortunately I haven't seen any Specialized Legacy Firmware drop from these bases but I did find a fair bit of it from mission rewards so it is worth checking the mission boards whenever you're docked at a station. These settlements are however quite helpful for Cracked Industrial Firmware if you need it, I probably got more Cracked Industrial Firmware drops in total from the bases than I did MEF.

I have gotten several bounties from entering high security bases so now I just don't even bother anymore. I tried a ground assault once thinking I could gradually pick off the skimmers but that didn't go well, basically the SRV just didn't have the firepower or shields to handle 3-4 skimmers and there was really no way to isolate them one at a time. The only successful high security assaults I've heard of basically involve clearing the base from orbit in your ship and then driving into the base once you've destroyed all the defences and I really don't have the patience to solo an entire base myself (especially since they've nerfed the targeting of ground units from your ship).

Finally got a MEF at Dummer plant. I have ten classified scan fragments that are the same rarity from doing the exploration bases but that's RNG for you I guess.

If someone could post a clip of them doing a run on the industrial or scientific style bases or preferably both I would really appreciate it ,I'm struggling a bit with the maps (my fault the maps are good quality) the exploration style I allready knew how to do ...but i didn't know you could do it without getting a bounty.

Finally got a MEF at Dummer plant. I have ten classified scan fragments that are the same rarity from doing the exploration bases but that's RNG for you I guess.

If someone could post a clip of them doing a run on the industrial or scientific style bases or preferably both I would really appreciate it ,I'm struggling a bit with the maps (my fault the maps are good quality) the exploration style I allready knew how to do ...but i didn't know you could do it without getting a bounty.

Is there anything in particular that you're finding difficult about the layout/maps for the Industrial or Scientific bases? The key point for these bases is that the final data point is scanned at ground level despite not having direct line of sight to the data point. For Industrial bases you're scanning the rooftop data point while staying at ground level (insetad of boosting onto the roof) and for Scientific bases you're scanning a data point behind a wall that you can't see directly but will still be targetable (instead of boosting over the wall into the courtyard). For these data points you need to get right next to the wall and move your turret up slightly to see the data point on your scanner. If the bases are on a low gravity world however you don't have to scan these points from ground level, you can always boost onto the roof or over the wall to be able to see the last data point directly if you want. Since they're the last points on the list you usually have plenty of time accumulated on the timer to get your positioning correct or to take the time to get direct line of sight.

Thank you Devari, Djadjok & DJA
oh and for Cracked Industrial just do all the single + and ++ (that are safe) in the same systems as the ones in the list, and I got 15 from just doing the Industrial layout systems.

keep up the good work guys..and yes I've also been back to the 89 Leonis system and no joy with resetting after 9 days.

Thanks devari (and dead djadjok and DJA) I think with the maps I was struggling to understand where the last data point was then I found it and got locked behind a gate.
I only tried it once and I was in a frustrated mood after having bad (RNG) luck in the other bases so I will give it another go today.

Finally got a MEF at Dummer plant. I have ten classified scan fragments that are the same rarity from doing the exploration bases but that's RNG for you I guess.

If someone could post a clip of them doing a run on the industrial or scientific style bases or preferably both I would really appreciate it ,I'm struggling a bit with the maps (my fault the maps are good quality) the exploration style I allready knew how to do ...but i didn't know you could do it without getting a bounty.